


Klaus Hargreeves's Guide to Raising Houseplants

by maremote



Series: And Then There Were Eight [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Abbie - Freeform, Everyone gets better, Fix-It, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Ghosts, How Do I Tag, Klaus Hargreeves' book of household chores, Lucy + Tom are pure & innocent cinnamon rolls who must be protected at all costs, Mentions of Prostitution, Mentions of Reginald Hargreeves - Freeform, One More, Peace lilies, Plant nurseries, Plants, Post-Canon Fix-It, Read the first part first, Sequel, Stabbie for lyfe, Stella is the best, Vanya is dead, am I missing something, can you tell i am losing my mind, garden centres, jk, like seriously there are a LOT of plants in this fic, mentions of recreational drug use, no beta we die like ben, oh yeah even more plants, ok fine i'll stop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-01-20 15:48:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 12,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18528193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maremote/pseuds/maremote
Summary: Sequel to "And Then There Was Five." I recommend reading that first, but you can probably figure things out off just this.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> guys it took me like 3 hours to come up with this title
> 
> previous contenders:  
> "Klaus Hargreeves's Big Book of Household Chores"  
> "Klaus Hargreeves's Guide To Running A Small Business"  
> "How To Run Your Own Nursery for (traumatized) Dummies"  
> "Klaus Hargreeve's Complete Guide To Houseplants"

Klaus loves his brother.

Five is the best. He’s the best. There’s no disputing it. He is one hundred and ten percent the most wonderful, talented, amazing big brother in the history of cranky 58-year-old time-traveling assassin big brothers. Granted, not that he has much competition in that very specific category, but even if he did- even if to be a cranky middle-aged time-traveling assassin big brother was the most commonplace, run-of-the-mill, ordinary situation one might find themselves in, Five would still be the best.

Klaus tells Five as much when his big brother (the _best_ big brother) comes up with the proposition that he should handle the business side of things with their future nursery and that Klaus should grow the plants.

“ _Raise_ the plants,” he can’t help himself from correcting, and then launches forward on his speech about how greatly Five excels in the area of big-brotherhood. Five looks mildly pleased and like he’s trying very hard to hide it, and makes some snide comment about _always_ being the best at _everything._ Klaus loves him all the more for how very _him_ he is, and he throws his arms out, leaning towards Five with the full intent of wrapping his brother in a bone-crushing hug. At the very last second, however, he notices the well-hidden panic in his brother’s eyes at the sight of Klaus about to hug him and remembers the way physical contact affects his brother. Immediately, Klaus isn’t reaching for a hug but to the sky, to loudly thank Five’s deity of choice. If Five can be the best big brother in the history of- well, you know- Klaus can at least avoid triggering him in return.

There’s gratitude in the lines on Five’s face, lines that will never not look out of place on someone seemingly so young, and there’s relief in Klaus’s heart. Neither of them is fooled by the charade, performed as if for Abbie’s benefit, who sits there on the kitchen windowsill watching them, though both of them is keenly aware that even Abbie, Abbie who is coarse and unrefined, Abbie who Five has reluctantly finally acknowledged as Stella’s future wife, isn’t fooled either. Klaus may be theatrical, but he’s a terrible, terrible actor. Luckily- or perhaps not-so-luckily- the former often discredits any and all deep revelations Klaus could make, which is how despite making very little pretence of anything ever being all right with him and despite being the loudest, most colourful of the Hargreeves siblings, Klaus has always managed to blend into the background and to leave his siblings guessing on the few occasions where they wondered about him.

“I’m an atheist, anyway,” he snarks, because _of course_ he does. Klaus’s brother has never been one for letting someone else have the last word. Now that he thinks about it, all his brothers are like that, really; save Luther, who might silently decide to choke you to death before the conversation was over, in which case you would _technically_ have the last word. Of course, it would also be the last word of your life.

“Why, what god do atheists pray to?” Klaus asks innocently, batting dark eyelashes. Five rolls his eyes and looks away to hide a smile, and _yay,_ Klaus made him smile!

“All right, great,” Five says brusquely, all business again, and Klaus grins because he’s on to him, the big softie.

Well. Small softie. Whatever.

“So I’ll manage the business, you’ll manage the plants, and I won’t kill anyone with my- what’s the reverse of a black thumb?” Five asks, frowning.

“Black thumb,” Klaus answers, “but there’s no way you’ve got one. You kept our family alive!” Klaus throws his arms open to gesture, even though Stella and Lucy + Tom are upstairs in Klaus’s room.

Five raises his eyebrow at Klaus. “One’s a cactus, one’s possessed, and the other two only need their water changed every week. Not exactly the most high-maintenance plants.

Klaus hears what he’s not saying, though, because he’s thinking it too. They _kept_ us _alive, Klaus, not the other way around._

“So how do we start, Mr. Businessman?” Klaus asks, and squirms around on the kitchen table where he’s sitting until he’s lying on his stomach, elbows on the table, chin propped up in his arms. In sharp contrast, Five is leaning casually against the counter, cool and suave as ever.

To be fair to Klaus himself, though, Five can be as smooth as he wants, but he’ll never have Klaus’s fashion sense.

“Well,” Five says thoughtfully, and Klaus can tell he’s getting excited at the thought of a big project, one requiring numbers and smarts and negotiations.

It’s not that Five’s enthusiasm is infectious; Klaus couldn’t care less about the business side of things, honestly. But there’s a picture in his mind of a room so full of green, living things that no unwelcome spirits will make it their homes, and the thought of it lights a cheerful little spark deep inside his stomach so bright he can still despite the heavy fog of what he’s been through that is all too often layered over everything he sees and feels.


	2. Go Shopping For Dirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s sheer extravagance and completely insane, Klaus declares to Five, and adds a plasticized tablecloth to their cart, for planting on top of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go!!! i"m really excited for this, and to get back into the chapter-a-day groove :)

Five is clearly convinced that the way to start is by selling online.

He’s fully prepared to set up a Craigslist account right there and then (“Craigslist? Really?” “Shut up. We’ve got to start somehow.”) but Klaus points out that that won’t do them any good without any plants to sell. So the next morning, Klaus drags Five along with him to Tumbleweed’s, where he cheerfully informs his boss he’s resigning effective immediately. Luckily, although the cynical (and ironically named) Barbara Ross is clearly pissed at him for abandoning his station without notice, she immediately changes her stance once Klaus offers to serve out the week. Klaus knows full well how grating she always found his habit of addressing the plants he sold as children being adopted, and though she spends a solid five minutes griping at him, she’s clearly glad to be rid of him.

They wander the aisles, Klaus leaping from plant to plant, greeting each one as if an old friend. He’s aware of Five lagging behind him, clearly feeling out of place, so Klaus drags his brother to the section of the store that sells supplies for planting from seed.

He’s done his research, luckily; and working at Tumbleweed’s, Klaus has picked up some tips and tricks from conversations between more experienced staff members or from chatting with long-time customers.

Klaus isn’t sure yet what he wants to specialise in; so he buys a little of everything. He runs his hands along the rotating rack of plastic seed packets and picks out both herbs, vegetables, and flowers. In the end, he decides on basil, lavender, tarragon, alyssum, coleus, zinnia, and crackerjack marigolds.

He buys a wooden potmaker, too. He’s been dying to try it out with actual seed starters since he wrapped a couple from some clients, though it draws him a quizzical glance from Five, to whom the contraption simply looks like a large wooden pawn with a saucer, but Klaus promises to explain later, and resolves to grab some of the free newspapers the supermarket gives out the next time he or Five are shopping.

Soil is another essential, and to be safe Klaus buys both potting soil for when the plants are older and starter mix to avoid any risk of disease. Neither Hargreeves sibling knows anything about the quality of their backyard soil, and Klaus isn’t prepared to risk using common garden soil from a tiny New York City backyard to start his future babies off.

Klaus also buys a couple large plastic trays to hold the newspaper seedling pots, and then it’s time to build a planting kit. They buy gloves, though Klaus doubts he’ll ever use them unless he decides to work with cacti; then they spend a solid ten minutes inspecting pairs of snips. Five seems interested in the sharpness of the blades, and Klaus has to admit it’s useful having a pint-sized weaponry expert on hand to help him pick out the sharpest pair of snips they can find for trimming roots and pruning. They find a good pair that Klaus is confident will last ages as long as he remembers to wipe them down and keep them dry.

Next comes the watering can and the mister. Five is all for using an empty Clorox spray bottle, but the mere suggestion makes Klaus splutter with indignation. He’s still baffled at Five having suggested they _water their plants with an empty bleach bottle_ when they pick out a nice tin watering can and a matching mister.

That’s all they really _need_ , but Klaus wants to spare no expense when it comes to his future children, so they pull out all the stops and splurge on a trowel. It’s sheer extravagance and completely insane, Klaus declares to Five, and adds a plasticized tablecloth to their cart, for planting on top of.

At the checkout, the cashier cheerfully refers to Five as Klaus’s son, and he only looks mildly annoyed. Klaus uses the opportunity to lean across the cash and whisper conspiratorially to her, “He’s got an old soul.”

“I can tell,” the cashier whispers back, and winks. Klaus snorts and even Five smiles, because she can’t. She really can’t.

They walk home. It’s noon, and it’s sunny. Klaus rambles on about this and that the whole way, paying more attention to his brother’s minute reactions to the conversation than to the words that actually leave his mouth. There’s a light breeze sweeping through the city, and the early May sunshine carries with it a promise of growth and life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think!!!
> 
> Also, 1615 church avenue has a playlist in the making! I'll be putting a link to it on my tumblr soon @ghibli-ghost-cats


	3. Deal With Family Issues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So Ben is back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh i have been waiting SO LONG to write this scene.....  
> a lot of you have already been guessing as to what Ben has been up to all this time.... all i can say is.... it will become a big part of this story moving on

Patience is essential when dealing with plants, but also with family members who have a tendency to cope with their trauma in unhealthy, self-destructive ways. When they get home, Five is terse and tense and clipped, so Klaus doesn’t say anything when he scoops Abbie up off the counter and carries her upstairs. A little later, tell-tale dull thuds signify that he’s working off some tension. It worries Klaus a little that Five chose to take Abbie; Five usually chooses his workout companion based on a scale of 1-3, where one is when he’s feeling the least jittery (Lucy + Tom) and three being full-on irrationally-angry-instant-kill-mode-Five (Abbie.) He pushes down the instinct to trail after his brother, because he knows there’s nothing that aggravates Five more than being babied.

While Five punches, Klaus drops their white plastic bags and tote of soil on the kitchen table and then wanders idly into the store. The wooden floorboards creak under his feet, and the dark wood flooring and exposed-brick walls are very Dharun, very Stella. Klaus can picture them here together, before everything fell apart. He can even imagine Ananya, smiling and kind, flexible and unbreakable, a mirror image of her daughter. His heart twists oddly, and he has to remind himself that Stella’s here, even if only in the form of a plant.

A voice speaks out from behind Klaus, and he yelps, jumping. “There’s no form more fitting for her, is there?”

Klaus whirls around to see Ben, perched on the store counter, the only piece of furniture in the room. “ _Jesus_ ,” he exclaims. “Ben!”

“Sorry,” Ben half-smiles, and draws his legs up to his chest. He crosses them and slides his hoodie sleeves up his arms, revealing the lower half of his Umbrella Academy tattoo, visible even on his ghostly arm.

“Sorry,” Klaus says, incredulously. _Lividly,_ even. “Sorry?”

Ben, never one to use two words when none will do, simply frowns and raises his eyebrows, and Klaus is reminded just how much he envies Ben’s apparent ability to convey exactly what he wants to without a word. It’s never struck him as an eerie trait in Stella, or Abbie, or Lucy + Tom, because… well, he’s not really sure why. It might have something to do with the fact that they don’t exactly have a choice.

Ben, on the other hand, does. Yet he simply chooses not do, and for all that he’s quieter and more reserved and always was that way, Klaus sometimes envies his frank sincerity. There’s nothing forced about his silence; nothing that suggests he’s got anything to hide. Ben has mastered the art of being truly open without ever having to say a word. Klaus doesn’t think Ben could lie if he wanted to, barring lies of omission.

In this case, Ben’s slight, almost imperceptible change of expression communicates his intent exactly. It’s an expression of mild confusion, an expression of polite interest; an expression that says _I don’t know what you saying and I’ll listen if you talk but I don’t particularly care if we drop it._

It’s caring and different all at once, and Klaus wonders at Ben’s ability to be so careful with his emotional investments.

“You disappear for weeks,” Klaus rants, a tad dramatically, he’ll admit, spreading his arms and shuffling slightly on the spot, “without a word. You refuse to tell me what you’ve been doing when you do reappear, and then you take my new friend- and my pseudo-stepfather, by the way, if you weren’t paying attention- and you disappear again. And her?” Klaus points an accusing finger at the corner to his left, where the figure of a meek-looking, bespectacled woman with an arrow through her heart is standing there abashedly. “Little miss meek, who’s been following me around begging for me to bring her back to life for the past three years, on and off? You disappear, and she shuts up. And it’s not just her! It’s all the ghosts! What did you do?” Klaus finishes accusingly, swinging his arm around to point at Ben himself.

“Nothing,” Ben protests. “I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

Klaus narrows his eyes. “But you know who does.”

Ben sighs and passes his hand over his forehead, then drops it down onto his knee. “Look, it’s a long story-,”

A laugh that seems borderline hysterical even to Klaus escapes him, and Ben frowns a little, looking like he’s wondering whether or not he should be concerned.

“A long story,” Klaus repeats. “It better be. And it better be a good one, too.”

“It is,” Ben says quietly. “It’s amazing. But it’s not my story to tell, and it’s not Dharun’s, either.”

“Whose is it then?” Klaus asks scornfully, and Ben sighs. “It’s not my place to tell you.”

They stare at each other for a moment, Klaus trying to gauge whether or not he can drag any more information out of Ben. Ben stares back, impassive, determined, secretive yet still bluntly, completely honest.

Klaus is first to break and he sighs, turning away with his hands on his hips. “All right. All right. But- you know- at least tell me-,” he holds up a hand, turning towards Ben again, but finds himself unable to look him in the eye. “You know, if you’re going to leave again-,”

“I’m not,” Ben says, quiet and unmovable. “I’m back for good.”

Klaus nods.

So.

So Ben is back.

He turns his attention to the store. It’s spacious, sunny and empty.

It’s perfect for what he has planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think!  
> Also I finished the 1615 church avenue playlist! You can find it on my tumblr. Also on my tumblr is a long writer's commentary on Stella's character and her role in this fic, requested by an anon. @ghibli-ghost cats


	4. Build cribs and cradles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus adores Ben, and although Ben has and always will understand Klaus perfectly, Klaus will never really understand Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your lovely kudos and comments and bookmarks! they really motivate me to write more and better :)

Basil, lavender, tarragon, alyssum, coleus, zinnia, and crackerjack marigolds.

Those are the seeds Klaus has bought, and they’re laid out in front of him on the plasticized tablecloth when Five descends again down the stairs, looking wary at the sight of Klaus sitting cross-legged in the middle of the store.

The tablecloth is laid out in front of Klaus, and on it lie the two trays, their packets of seeds, the package of seed starter mix, a stack of old newspapers, and the wooden potmaker.

“Took you long enough,” Klaus can’t stop himself from grousing at Five. Okay, so maybe he’s still a _little_ angry about the whole Ben situation.

Five frowns and walks over, taking a seat beside him, and Klaus sighs. “Sorry. It’s just, Ben’s being-,”

“Ben’s back?” Five says quickly, head snapping up and neck craning to look around the room as if if he looks hard enough he’ll be able to see his brother standing there. It makes Klaus a little sad.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, and doesn’t elaborate. Fortunately, Five doesn’t ask, turning his attention to the materials in front of them instead. “So where do we start?”

Klaus is only briefly surprised by both Five wanting to help and by the rapid 180-degree change in the topic of conversation; he quickly recovers and grabs a newspaper from the top of the pile. “We rip these up.” Klaus unfolds and detaches the first page of the newspaper, shaking it so that the other pages fall down in a crumpled heap in front of him. Under Five’s curious eye, Klaus grabs a pair of safety scissors he found in one of the drawers in the dresser Dharun left behind and cuts a strip about four inches wide from the top of the newspaper all the time to the bottom. Then he drops the rest of the newspaper and grabs the potmaker. Carefully Klaus wraps the newspaper around the larger wooden piece of the potmaker and turns it over, tucking the excess into the grooves in the underside of the potmaker. Once he’s done that, he places the larger piece into the bottom piece and twists, pressing down on either side. Finally, he drops the base piece and carefully pulls a tiny seedling pot made of newspaper off the pawn-shaped top part. He presents it to Five with a flourish, who raises his eyebrows and looks vaguely impressed. “Nice.”

Klaus, who for once doesn’t particularly feel like talking, hands over the potmaker and busies himself cutting the rest of the newspaper into long strips. It takes Five a couple tries to make pots that stay together and don’t fall over or come undone, but he gets the hang of it relatively quickly and they work in quiet efficiency, Klaus keenly aware of Ben, who is sitting opposite his living brothers, just on the other side of the tablecloth.

“You’re upset,” someone says, and Klaus looks up from his work towards Five. Five, however, is utterly absorbed in the process of twisting the parts of the potmaker against each other, brow furrowed, and Klaus looks over their setup to Ben, who is crouched there on the floor, fixing Klaus with his calm, intense gaze.

“Yeah,” Klaus says, and it comes out quieter than he meant it to. At the sound of his voice, Five looks up in confusion. “What?”

“Ben,” Klaus explains, and it strikes him that this is going to be very, very awkward. Klaus adores Ben, and although Ben has and always will understand Klaus perfectly, Klaus will never really understand Ben. Ben and Five, however, always had a connection that surpassed caring and love and crossed into the mystical, elusive territory of genuine liking and understanding. It is one thing to love your siblings. It is another completely to like and understand them; and if the two are circles in a Venn diagram, the relationship between Ben and Five falls into the area shared by both.

“Do you think I could-,” Five begins, then frowns and returns his focus to his potmaker, sliding the paper pot off the pawn-shaped piece and dropping it beside the twenty-or-so others. He gazes somberly down at his work, then grabs another piece of newspaper and twists it around the larger potmaker piece, careful and methodical yet clearly completely lost in thought.

“What?” Klaus asks when he gets tired of waiting, even though he knows how much Five hates being rushed. He doesn’t seem to mind in this instance, though, and simply sighs, face relaxing out of his frown as he lets his hands drop into his lap. “Do you think- I mean, is there any way I could – see Ben?”

Klaus is briefly thrown by Ben, who says “See me,” in perfect synchronization with the end of Five’s query. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts and frowns.

There was a time he would have laughed away the question. There was a time he would’ve been too high to even understand that Five was talking to him. There was a time that even convincing even one of his siblings that he really saw Ben would’ve seemed to be a feat of which he was completely and utterly incapable.

Things have changed, however. And even more importantly, Klaus has changed.

Klaus looks across to Ben, who is guarded and calm, and just for half a second, just for half a heartbeat, in the time it takes for a bullet to leave the barrel of a gun or for a heart to break, he sees the façade slip, and he sees past Ben’s walls, walls that are constructed not out of lies but out of inconsequential truths and lies of omission, which makes them all the more impenetrable, and he sees a deep, deep longing to be _seen._ To _exist,_ by others’ standards.

Klaus has often felt invisible, ignored, passed over. It’s never really occurred to him that Ben has, too.

Klaus pulls another newspaper towards him and starts to cut yet another strip, four inches by twenty. “It’s possible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think.  
> did you like it? comment! did you not like it? go roast the shit out of me on tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	5. Plants require patience- and so do humans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now he and Five and Ben sit in the middle of their store, planting basil seeds, Klaus reflects bitterly, like none of it ever happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh I fell asleep for like 3 hours by accident this afternoon and almost didn't write a chapter bc i was so tired when I woke up :( but i'm actually really happy with how this turned out, now excuse me while i go do the thing with the lying unconscious for 8 hours

Klaus rips open the bag of soil with admittedly more force than necessary, and Five, who is sitting cross-legged and looking oddly and uncharacteristically quiet and zen, raises an eyebrow.

Klaus sighs dramatically and lets the bag drop onto the tablecloth. He looks across the tablecloth at Ben, who is cross-legged, watching him expectantly.

Klaus has just spent the last half-hour focussing on making Ben visible while Five continued making paper pots; yet each time he opened his eyes and asked Five if he saw anything, his older brother shook his head apologetically and went on making newspaper pots.

It’s maddening, and Klaus says as much, half to Ben and half to Five, who nods his head as if to say _I get it._ Ben says nothing, but props his elbows on his knees and rests his chin in his hands, with immediately makes him feel tremendously guilty for not trying harder, for not doing better.

Five says no more on the matter, though, reaching out instead for a paper seedling pot. “So how do we start these, anyway?”

The about-face only throws Klaus for a couple seconds, then he untangles his numb legs with some difficulty and stands. “I’ll be back in a second.” Klaus makes his way into the downstairs bathroom and grabs the ceramic plate holding their bar of soap, then returns to the store and to Ben and Five, who both frown at him in confusion. “Soap?”

“Yup.” Klaus sits down with a sigh, then picks up the bar of soap in his left hand. Carefully, he drags his nails across the bar, scraping up tiny jasmine-scented shavings that clump up underneath his nails. He turns it over into his right hand and drags his left nails along it too.

“To stop dirt getting under your nails,” he explains to Five and Ben, handing Five the bar of soap. “It fills out the crevice under your nails, and the soap’ll dissolve in water when you wash your hands in water afterwards.”

“Smart,” Ben comments, and Klaus is about to agree when he stops and reformulates his answer. “It _is_ smart, yeah,” he says, making sure to include the original statement in the response. Five briefly glances up and Klaus knows that his brother’s caught on. He’s too damn smart not too.

If Klaus can’t help Ben be seen, he can at least make sure he’s heard.

Once Five places the soap back in its dish, Klaus picks up the paper packet of basil seed and shakes it. He presses on the creases on either end to shape it into a prism rather than a rectangle, and shakes it again, tilting it so all the seeds run into the left bottom corner. Then he carefully rips the plasticized packet open along the top crease and shakes two tiny basil seeds into the palm of his hand.

The basil seeds are relatively large for seeds; they’re each about half the size of an uncooked grain of rice, hard, and black. Klaus sets the packet down and places the seeds on top of it. Then, under his brothers’ watchful eyes, he scoops about one and a half handfuls of seedling starting mix into a newspaper pot and shakes the pot a little to settle the dirt. Inserting his pinky finger into the soil, Klaus makes a small hole in the centre of the pot, and drops in the two seeds. Then he places the pot back down on the tablecloth.

Five looks relatively intrigued, and reaches out for a seedling pot to try his own hand at it. Klaus sneaks a glance at Ben and finds him following Five’s progress looking mildly interested. It only strengthens his resolve to, at some point, figure out this whole tangible-ghost thing.

The truth is that he has no idea where to start. That night in the Icarus theatre, it seemed to be ripped out of him; Klaus put it down to desperation, to adrenaline, to withdrawal, to anything, really; he remembers exactly how it felt, that cold-yet-hot pulsing sensation in his chest, so strong he felt like he would burst; the feeling of pure energy flowing from his head and toes down his arms. He remembers it collecting around his wrists and curling around his fingers, remembers Ben bursting forth from him; but he can’t remember for the life of him how he did it.

He remembers everything else about that night, too. He remembers Vanya, suspending them in an utterly painful halo that Klaus barely felt; he remembers floating five feet off the ground surrounded by pain that felt way too familiar and way too much like something he’d seek out intentionally to be shocking.

He remembers the single gunshot. He remembers the blood, Allison sobbing silently and clutching at Vanya on the floor. So young.

Yet another kind, strong, vulnerable, beautiful, _innocent_ person Klaus loved- _loves_ \- thrust into something they’d never wanted or envisaged; thrust into a conflict between forces bigger than them, forces they’d never imagined themselves fighting for until they, by sheer circumstance, found themselves on the battlefield with an order to kill and nothing to do but that until they found themselves to be the one dying. Until Dave was lying in that muddy, muddy ground far away from home, as Allison clung to Vanya and wept, as Klaus begged Dave to come back to him, as Allison tried to wipe Dave’s face clean of blood-

Klaus’s throat feels dry and his head feels hot and muddled.

Now he and Five and Ben sit in the middle of their store, planting basil seeds, Klaus reflects bitterly, like none of it ever happened.

Except no, that’s not what they’re doing. They’re not pretending nothing happened, because it did, and they both know that. And they’re trying, they are. To save themselves. To help each other.

They’re here to plant seeds that will, hopefully, outlive them.

Klaus’s past has been painted in dark gray, in red and olive green; the colours were chosen for him by forces he had and has no control over him, placed in his hands, and the model he was given to depict was a shadowy spectre known as death. But there are more uses for green than camouflage vests and steel helmets, Klaus reminds himself; and where there is death there is the life that follows. The dirt he holds in his hands- the dirt from which will spring forth basil and lavender, tarragon, alyssum, coleus, zinnia, and crackerjack marigolds- is made of the past, of broken, dead things.

The dirt he holds in his hands is the dirt out of which will grow plants, and those plants will be his future. Death will always be drawn to Klaus- it’s a fact written in whatever book the fates go by when designing earthly events- but nowhere is it written that he must therefore repel life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think
> 
>  
> 
> you know the drill.............. @ghibli-ghost-cats


	6. Plants have good taste in music...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Over the next few days, Klaus makes three playlists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go :)

Neither Klaus nor Five anticipate just how much waiting there is involved in starting a plant nursery. Waiting for their plants to grow, Klaus and Five often spend long stretches of time doing what amounts to nothing.

Five is clearly getting antsy, and Klaus yearns to wrap him in his arms and calm him down; but if there’s one thing he’s learned by now, it’s that telling Five to calm down is, as a general rule, a bad idea, and that his particular brand of nervous energy needs to be worked off, not dissipated. So he doesn’t protest when Five heads upstairs with the clear intention of beating the shit out of his punching bag, instead shoving both Abbie and Stella into his arms on his way up the stairs, insisting he keep them company.

Five’s getting better, he is, but the chances of him returning with bloody knuckles is still significantly lower when someone’s there to hold him accountable. Once again, not a word is said about either sibling’s true intentions; still, the message gets through and they hear each other’s silence perfectly well.

That leaves Klaus downstairs with Lucy + Tom and Ben and an eerie silence.

Klaus looks around for a distraction and finds nothing, Ben being buried in a copy of something in Russian, and ends up pulling the laptop closer towards him. He spends an unsuccessful half-hour searching for something- anything, really- to do- before he accidentally opens the music app. He’s about to close it again when his gaze falls upon Lucy and Tom and an idea strikes him.

 

Over the next few days, Klaus makes three playlists.

The first one he makes is for Lucy and Tom, who are what amounts to the plant equivalent of twins, and who have identical tastes in music.

The first artist they take a shine to isn’t at all the kind of thing Klaus is expecting them to like. Billie Eilish’s songs are, in Klaus’s humble opinion, much more up Abbie’s alley, or maybe even Five’s, but Lucy and Tom love her music, so he starts with that. _Xanny_ and _my strange addiction_ hit a little too close to home, so he skips those and moves on. Their choice is a bit more consistent with Klaus’s vision of their potential taste in music: most of what they choose is her slower, sadder, softer songs. There are a couple exceptions, though: Lucy clearly thinks _you should see me in a crown_ is a bop, which makes Klaus look at her in an entirely different way, but the next artist the twins like, Sigrid, is a bit more like what Klaus was predicting.

The trend continues with Noah Kahan, Mozi and Corinne Bailey Rae (who Tom especially likes) and a couple pop artists whose names escape Klaus. The final artist they decide to include is immediately Klaus’s favourite; and Florence + The Machine’s song _No Light, No Light_ is immediately moved to the top of the playlist.

It’s bluntly, powerfully ethereal in a raw way that, in the words of Noah Kahan, tears Klaus down and builds him back up again. He cries to it, dances to it, and lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, contemplating existence, all in the span of one listen.

Sigrid, with her vibrant colours and beats, is another essential part of the lucy + tom playlist, with _Sucker Punch, High Five_ and _Strangers_.

Klaus starts to blast the playlist at random times; three in the afternoon. Noon. Morning. Midnight. Five doesn’t complain, but then again Five sometimes wakes Klaus up by blasting (hauntingly beautiful) violin music at 3 AM. They all cope differently.

Ben does complain, but Klaus sticks his tongue out at him and Ben rolls his eyes and abandons it as a lost cause.

Of course, it isn’t long before Abbie gets jealous of Lucy and Tom having their own playlist, and so Five, who by now understands Abbie in a way Klaus probably never will, joins him in the kitchen, actually crawling on top of the table with him, and the three, Abbie, Five, and Klaus, crowd around the computer to build the second playlist.

Abbie’s taste in music is predictably totally different from Lucy + Tom, and completely predictable. Her playlist bounces from bubblegum to punk to metal to pop. Girli’s sing-talking peppers her playlist with indignance and irony; Lana Del Rey croons softly alternately about Vegas, murder, and sex. Marina _circa_ Electra Heart brings things back to pop. The existentialism and hedonism of Metallica makes an occasional appearance and clipping. raps over a backing track like scraping glass and gunshots.

It’s an incredibly stressful playlist to make. It’s completely metal and very, very angry, and kind of scares Klaus. Once they’re done Klaus resolves to never play it again.

They can’t just not make Stella one- not after they’ve made one for everyone else- so they get started on that, and predictably, Stella’s playlist is the only one everyone can agree on, even Abbie. Strands of instrumental piano and cello covers fill 1615; the next song is a jazzy pop single by John Legend, and then another cello remix of a classic. The soundtrack of Game of Thrones, skilfully rendered in a cappella, makes them all unconsciously sit up a little straighter; and then they all tap their toes to Sinatra and Billy Joel. Even Five has to admit _We Didn’t Start the Fire_ is a masterpiece, even if none of them understand the lyrics (save Five, who deciphers a couple words here and there from his time as an assassin). There’s John Schmidt, Yiruma, the Beach Boys; there’s jazz and classics and pop; and it and Lucy + Tom’s playlist become the two most-heard soundtracks to life at 1615.

Abbie seems to quietly and uncharacteristically realise that her playlist stresses everyone out and doesn’t insist on having it played. It’s very kind of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> stella, lucy + tom, and abbie's playlists all do exist and can be found on spotify. the specific links are on my blog @ghibli-ghost-cats


	7. ..and in furniture...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He tries to yank it up, to test the quality, and almost dislocates his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) :) ily all, I'm behind on comments but I promise I'll get to it

Soon after, Klaus realises just how bare 1615 is. There’s something about the way music swirls around their home, filling every nook and cranny that only serves to highlight how barren, how plain and unfurnished it really is.

The only furniture they really own is their two beds, the laundry machine and dryer, a nightstand, a dresser, the kitchen table and chairs, and Five’s punching bag, if that can be counted as furniture. Their clothes are piled in cardboard boxes salvaged from the grocery store and Klaus has some lovely fabrics that are _not_ happy about that; Klaus’s room is empty save his bed, pushed up in the corner.

Klaus therefore appears at Five’s bedroom door one morning to find Five sitting cross-legged on the floor, laptop on the floor, working away at something while violin music fills the room, ethereally beautiful and familiar. (Klaus’ll have to ask Five for the playlist.) The sight only reinforces his determination, and he knocks at the doorframe and invites himself in.

Klaus spends half an hour lying draped upside-down on Five’s bed, ranting about why, exactly, they need better furnishings, and then finally pauses for breath and looks to Five to judge his opinion. Five is listening carefully, chin propped on one hand, laptop closed in his lap though the music continues.

He thinks for a few moments, then nods and Klaus slides off the bed and drags himself closer to peer at the laptop screen while Five looks up furniture thrift stores nearby.

They find three. They decide to leave the next morning and make a day of it, and they take Stella.

The first doesn’t have anything they like, but the moment the enter the second one, about ten minutes away from the first (they draw some odd looks on the subway, this flamboyantly dressed 30-year-old man and a  stern-looking preteen scowling and holding a potted plant) Klaus spots a vintage mid-century office chair and crows in victory, diving down on it and skidding across the store. The sales clerk glares at him, but Klaus ignores in her favour of getting up off the chair and wheeling it back to Five, who looks unimpressed.

“An office chair?” Five questions, holding Stella, who looks a few shades more understanding, but the both of them look utterly nonplussed by the fact that Klaus would find such a simple-looking piece of furniture attractive. “We don’t even have an office. And you don’t like sitting in chairs.”

“Not for _sitting,_ ” Klaus grins widely, and he can already picture himself sliding around the big, empty store in the chair. He tries to yank it up, to test the quality, and almost dislocates his shoulder. “Jesus,” he winces, “this thing’s heavy.”

“That’s a good sign,” Five remarks, and steps closer, placing Stella on the seat of the chair to stoop and peer up at the underside of the chair. Whatever he reads there, he immediately looks more impressed, and he stands, nodding. “It’s a good brand, too.”

Klaus dives down to inspect the bottom and sees the word _Chromcraft_ emblazoned in silver on the metal. “What do you know about furniture brands, anyways?”

“I don’t,” Five says, sounding amused, “but there was a chair, not a rolling chair, but a chair with a similar look to this one, after the apocalypse, and it was Chromcraft.”

The comment about Five’s taste in post-apocalyptic furniture briefly throws Klaus for a loop, not only because it’s so odd, but because Klaus thinks it’s probably one of the first things about that part of Five’s life that he’s shared willingly.

The silence begins to stretch and Klaus knows if he stays uncharacteristically silent too long, Five will clam up again, so he quickly jokes, “Who knew time travel would qualify you so well for homemaking?”

It’s a lame joke, and Five doesn’t laugh; but Klaus wasn’t expecting him to, and it breaks the tension. Five makes a note of the chair and Klaus scoops up Stella and they move on.

The next thing they find is a wood cabinet that Stella takes such a strong fancy to it stops Klaus in his tracks. He has to admit the wood grain is very pretty, and it’s in great condition. The top is rounded and smooth, and the feet are elegantly carved. It’s just the right size for storage of the sort of small, miscellaneous items Klaus and Five own in abundance; and Five comments that they do need a place for their gardening tools.

They make a note, and spend another hour browsing the store, which is when Ben shows up.

Klaus isn’t even aware that he’s summoning Ben until his ghostly brother makes a loud (and quite rude) comment about the condition of an armchair to their left. Klaus yelps so loudly that Five whirls around, which is lucky because Klaus also drops Stella, and Five somehow manages to shove his notepad under one arm and dive forwards fast enough to catch her before she hits the floor.

“Sorry,” Ben says meekly, and Klaus groans so loudly that a couple in the next aisle give him a pointedly dirty look and walk away.

“Ben?” Five guesses, handing Stella back to Klaus. She glares at him, fierce and angry, and he apologizes. “Yeah,” he says to Five, and gives Ben the stink-eye. Ben sticks his tongue out, and Five rolls his eyes, which for a second makes Klaus think he must be able to see Ben, before he realises that’s impossible.

The four of them reserve the office chair and the cabinet and leave the store. There’s only one more store they have to hit, and Five comments as they leave that they haven’t really bought any useful furniture yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> pics of the furniture mentioned are on my blog @ghibli-ghost-cats


	8. ....and so do ghosts, when it comes to books.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (He offers. Klaus doesn’t ask.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't write a chapter yesterday because I spontaneously decided to spring-clean at midnight so here's two in one go as an apology :)

They buy a dresser drawer.

They buy a pedestal table, and shelves for books, and a stack of metal stools. Klaus buys a giant mirror that they end up having to position in a slant so it fits in his room, and two or three small armchairs for the tiny sitting room upstairs. A couple lamps, too.

There’s only one piece of furniture Five requests, and that’s a dark green swivel rocker armchair. It’s very cozy, Klaus has to admit, and very him, and Klaus immediately knows that he’s never going to get to sit on it again. Five gets very territorial when it comes to these things.

Klaus insists upon a rather beat-up settee that Five, Stella, and Ben side-eye uncertainly, and Ben makes him buy a rug for the upstairs hallway. That’s all they really need, and they make arrangements for delivery.

It takes about a week for all the furniture to arrive, but it does, and Klaus and Stella, who has a real eye for interior decorating, spend a blissful two hours dragging things up and down the stairs and through different rooms. Klaus makes one attempt at lifting the mirror and gives up; it doesn’t even fit through the front door, so Five grabs it where it lies horizontally on the pavement and blinks upstairs into Klaus’s room with it.

(He offers. Klaus doesn’t ask.)

Five and Ben watch the process side by side, Five unable to see Ben but somehow, Klaus feels, able to tell that he’s there. Five goes upstairs to check on Klaus at one point. Five pops his head in at the door and watches Klaus for a little while, then leaves again. Moments later Vivaldi is winding through the house, from Five’s playlist no doubt. It is, surprisingly enough, a bop, and Klaus says as much to Five, who looks utterly lost.

So they set up their furniture, and their plants continue to grow. It’s mid-May by now, and their plants are starting to grow. The basil, marigolds, and tarragon, are already peeking out from the soil, tiny green tendrils stretching out towards any source of light. The lavender is showing signs of getting there, and the marigolds are coming along too; the zinnia, coleus and alyssum haven’t shown any signs of growth yet, but Klaus and Five do some research and find that that’s perfectly normal.

Still, Klaus fusses protectively over the plants. At Stella’s request, he sits Five and Ben down with her and Abbie and the five of them go through long lists of baby names, picking out the ones they like the most.

It isn’t long before Five is voicing the option of going book-shopping; he doesn’t much like the library as a place to read, what with its hard, uncomfortable chairs and how full it is of strangers all the time. Admittedly, the request rather worries Klaus, who is afraid having books at home will induce Five to retreat into his cocoon and the radius of his comfort zone to shrink considerably. He voices his concern to Ben, who coaches him on how to bring it up without sounding condescending; it works like a charm, and they make arrangements for Five to leave the house regularly without having to spend too much time around others.

Five hesitantly approaches Klaus later, and asks him to ask Ben for book recommendations.

Ben is over the moon. They go to a nearby bookstore that very day; Klaus is afterwards approached by Stella, who voices Abbie’s desire to come along.

It strikes Klaus that he’s become a sort of human intermediary for ghosts, plants, ghost-plants, and humans.

He doesn’t half mind.

So they go to a bookstore, and Ben recommends book after book after books.

“ _Brilliant Green-_ that’s a good one if nonfiction’s your thing. It’s about plant intelligence, too, so it’s relevant- on that note, see if they have a copy of _What a Plant Knows_.”

Ben would’ve made a great librarian.

Five is more into fiction, surprisingly (to Klaus at least; Ben seems to expect it) so Ben points him in the direction of Agatha Christie.

“She’s the most widely published author of all time, excluding the Bible and Shakespeare,” Ben says, and then recommends _And Then There Were None_ as a starting point. Ben doesn’t figure Tommy and Tuppence will much interest Five, he says, who he doesn’t think really goes in for the whole cutesy-mystery-solving-death-defying-couple thing. (Klaus grabs a copy of _Partners In Crime_ for himself when he hears that description of it.) Five decides on _The Secret of Chimneys, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?_ and the _Miss Marple_ series, on Ben’s insistence. Five’s sceptical about that last one, but Ben tells him that it’s about an old person constantly being underestimated, and he’s sold.

They pick up some classics; _Common Sense, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Great Gatsby, The Federalist Papers, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, The Age of Innocence, Tender is the Night;_ then Ben recommends some more modern literature.

“The Immortalists. Morbid, dark, and full of existential anxiety. It’s about life, death, and how the anticipation of death changes peoples’ lives.”

“Everything Here is Beautiful. Depressing, honest, magical.”

“Still Me doesn’t seem much your thing, but give it a try. Even if you don’t like it, Klaus will.”

“The Atomic City Girls- try that. You might find some things you recognize.”

The list continues. Ben recommends, through Klaus, Rachel Joyce, Kristin Hannah, and Christine Mangan.

Matt Haig he _absolutely_ insists on; and Five needs no urging to grab a copy of _How to Stop Time._

The list continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> I post extras (and I might start writing oneshots in this verse and posting them too? i'll let you know if i decide to) on my tumblr, @ghibli-ghost-cats


	9. Moody teenagers need room to grow.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five gives him a judgemental side-eye for that, but Klaus catches him rubbing the dirt that his hands inevitably end up covered in between his palms later on. He doesn’t comment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry you don't need to remember the names of all 20 plants lol

It’s early June, Five is halfway through his books, Ben and Abbie have become best friends, 1615 is well-furnished and bright, and it’s potting time.

Klaus waters the plants first, so the damp roots will cling to the soil, and Five joins him. Silently, he passes Klaus a bar of soap, and the two of them scratch it.

Five of their plants haven’t grown, which is fine; it saddens Klaus a little, but they’ve still got around twenty little seedlings, which isn’t bad.

They’ve gone supply-shopping again since last time, and the first thing they do for each pot is put down a drainage layer. They’ve chosen pebbles to keep soil inside the plant and away from the drainage holes at the base of the pots, and to save the roots from having to sit in water.

The layer they put down in two inches deep in the first, medium-sized pot, and after that it’s time to add potting soil. Klaus rips the package open and digs his fingers into the soil with relish. It’s soft and crumbly and moist, and he grabs two handfuls and squeezes.

Five gives him a judgemental side-eye for that, but Klaus catches him rubbing the dirt that his hands inevitably end up covered in between his palms later on. He doesn’t comment.

So they add potting soil; not much just a thin layer. The good thing about the newspaper pots they’ve chosen is that they don’t need to lift their plants by the roots; instead they simply pick up each little pot and Five holds it above the thin layer, his small hand size useful as Klaus scoops potting soil into the crevices around each little pot until each seedling is comfortable in its little pot. Klaus waters the basil plant lightly with bacterial inoculant as a one-time thing for creating healthy soil, and then Five begins to drag another pot towards them, but Klaus stops him with a gesture.

“What?” Five asks, and Klaus replies, offended at the thought that they might not, replies that they need to name the basil plant.

Five rolls his eyes and stands and leaves, which leaves Klaus feeling a lot sadder than it should.

He’s just about managed to redirect his focus to the plant, still feeling melancholy about Five abandoning him, when Five returns carrying Stella, Abbie, and Lucy + Tom. Klaus has to fight off a smile.

So Ben, Five, Klaus, Stella, Abbie, and Lucy + Tom- this family of seven, united only because of circumstance- sit in a circle and name plants.

There’s Belle, the basil they’ve just potted. The other three basil plants they name Chris, Jamie and Mike. There’s only two alysseum, and Abbie names both of them; the first Bart and the second Kara, which of course means Stella gets to name the two coleus. She immediately chooses to name first one Aditya the second takes a bit more time, but she settles on Kiran.

The process continues. The tarragon are Sharaf, Milada, Alvin, and Annadona; the lavender are Ellie, Emily, Jessica, and Jaime-Anne. The first marigold is Hannah, and when Klaus forces Five, who hasn’t suggested much so far, to name the other one, he names it Marigold, which Klaus balks at, but when he tries to suggest a different name Five asks him with a smirk if he thinks Marigold isn’t fitting enough.

What is Klaus supposed to say to _that?_

There’s also Elsa and Liana, their two zinnia.

So, they pot and name their plants, this little family, and Klaus feels a sense of something he never thought he’d feel at home; he feels a sense of security, a sense of warmth, a sense of pride, a sense that the place he sleeps every night can be unironically described as a home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	10. Ghosts can be argumentative at times.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Exactly,” Ben says, biting off the end of Klaus’s sentence. “You’re less important in this equation than you think you are, Klaus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh it took me YEARS to write this chapter

“What the fuck?”

That’s Klaus’s reaction when he picks up one of Five’s books two months later, in early August, and flips open the cover out of boredom, only for his eye to accidentally land on the publication date. 2017.

Now, it’s not that Klaus is shocked by the fact that the book was _published_ in 2017. It’s not even that Five doesn’t seem to have gotten around to reading it yet.

It’s that this particular book was recommended by Ben, who was most definitely dead when this book came out, and Klaus was most definitely too high to have materialised him.

“What is it?” Five asks, and Klaus looks up at him, startled. They’re in the upstairs sitting room, which is lined with shelves full of Five’s books, and Five is curled up in his swivel rocker with _The Immortalists._

Klaus isn’t sure how to respond, how much to say, or whether or not he wants to make this Five’s problem as well as his, so he decides to use his right to silence and say nothing. “Uh, nothing,” he stammers, frowning down at the book, and glancing around the room for Ben. Avoiding Five’s questioning, puzzled frown, he at last spots his brother hovering near the east-facing window, and Klaus has a brief recollection of his other, older brother standing in almost the exact same spot gazing at the horizon before collapsing in Klaus’s arms, old and wise and so very tired. He forces the memory out of focus of the lens of his mind’s eye and strides over to Ben, catching a glimpse of Five shrugging and returning to his book in his peripheral vision.

“Explain,” he demands, waving the book in Ben’s face. “I haven’t been manifesting you. I’ve been _trying_. But I can’t, okay? I can’t! So tell me how this is possible. How can you _possibly_ have read a book while I was high?”

Ben tears his eyes away from the window and meets Klaus’s. There’s a moment of profound connection where Ben silently asks Klaus whether he really wants to know and Klaus replies, equally as silent, that he means business this time.

Finally, Ben sighs and looks away. “I don’t know.”

Klaus waits, but he doesn’t offer more. “You don’t know.” He scoffs at that, and Ben rolls his eyes. “You clearly do! Or at least, you clearly know _something_.”

“I- have some guesses.”

“There you go!” Klaus protests indignantly, arms outstretched towards Ben, shaking with the effort it takes not to try and strangle his dead brother. “So what? What do you know? How did this happen?”

Ben doesn’t answer right away, and Klaus, who has been talking fast and making large, expansive gestures, feels a little tired and doesn’t press him further while he collects his thoughts.

Finally, Ben clears his ghostly throat. “In September of 2017, you overdosed.” He pauses for a second, licks his lips, opens and closes his mouth, and looks the closest to nervous that Klaus has ever seen him. “The hospital they took you-,” he sighs and tries again.

“The book was in the hospital waiting room. You were high, then you were, um.” Ben looks down, picks at the hem of his ghostly jeans, and Klaus lowers himself down onto the floor. “Then you were dead. Clinically. For a couple minutes.”

Ben takes a deep breath. “They revived you,” he continues, “and you spent the next five days in-hospital, too weak to leave or do any more of whatever you were on, coming down from the high, and you were-,”

“Sober,” Klaus finishes, realising where this story is going. “And that’s how you were able to-?” He frowns. “But I didn’t manifested you. Why were you able to-,”

“So?” Ben snaps at him, and Klaus jumps, surprised at the decidedly un-Ben-like tone. “Do you think all of this revolves around you? Do you think _I_ do?”

“All the ghosts you’ve ever seen, did you control them?” Klaus opens his mouth to answer, although he’s got no idea what he might say. “Did you tell them what to do? Did you _channel_ them? Did you _summon_ Dave, or did you just get sober?”

“And that night in the Icarus theatre? Did you _summon_ me? Was that you, _controlling_ me? Well, was it?”

Ben is breathing hard, and Klaus doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so riled up. It throws him completely. Klaus wets his lips. “I, um.”

But when he thinks about it, the answer isn’t particularly complex or hard. In fact, it’s downright simple, and he’s known it for a while. “No,” he whispers. “No, you just- you just-,”

“Exactly,” Ben says, biting off the end of Klaus’s sentence. “You’re less important in this equation than you think you are, Klaus.”

“Are you two done arguing?” Five calls from the other side of the room, and Klaus jumps. Ben glares at him and Klaus gulps. “Yeah. Yeah, I think we are. Why?”

“ _Because,_ ” Five says, bookmarking his page and leaping to his feet with a gleam in his eye that makes Klaus even more nervous than he already is, “it’s time we get _really_ started with this whole plant-nursery business.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know those chapters that you just want to get over with to get to the good stuff? yeah, this was that chapter.  
> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> my tumblr is @ghibli-ghost-cats, where i post extra content for this fic


	11. Fronds Are Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are mere mortals, operating as normally (or dysfunctionally, in Klaus’s case) as they can, and then there is Five, doing… whatever it is he’s doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took so long

As hard as Klaus knows it will be to put their plant-children up for adoption, he has to admit it’s necessary. The clutter of plants in 1615 is getting to be a bit much; Five and Klaus have knocked pots and plants off shelves and countertops; Klaus usually catching the plants before they topple into a pile of ceramic shards and dirt and roots, though sometimes not, a half-swallowed, desperate  _ fuck _ escaping his lips involuntarily, Five invariable catching the plants with a hum of annoyance, usually in one hand, usually with an eye-roll, and it doesn’t even make Klaus feel inadequate anymore because it’s  _ Five,  _ after all. 

 

There are mere mortals, operating as normally (or dysfunctionally, in Klaus’s case) as they can, and then there is Five, doing… whatever it is he’s doing, Klaus wonders, amused, as he watches his little big brother read  _ Anna Karenina _ on top of the kitchen table, cross-legged with Stella in his lap, peering at the pages from between Stella’s leaves.

 

Five is entering a classics phase at the moment, which is both good and bad. Good, because it’s time-consuming and will give Klaus more time to stall starting the nursery in earnest. Bad, because sometimes Five’ll find a book so maddening stupid or poorly written that he’ll begin to rage in that  _ Five _ way of his against the travesty of it being considered a classic by dint of it being an old book written by a dead white guy. When this happens, Klaus can always tell, because he rages to one of the plants about it (usually Abbie, probably because they’re both small and angry) and then piles the book on the corner of the kitchen counter, overlapping slightly with the drop to the floor. 

 

At first it seemed like a pretty tame response, especially for Five; until the pile reached higher… and higher… and higher… and then one day Klaus caught Five sitting at the other end of the counter. (Not really  _ at _ the counter, but on it. At this point Five seems to Klaus to have given up completely on anything that could reasonably be considered a chair.)

 

One day Klaus caught Five sitting on the other end of the counter, cross-legged, elbows resting on knees, fingers steepled in front of his face, just…  _ glaring  _ at the pile. 

 

“Oh-kay,” Klaus had said, quietly, and backed out of the kitchen. 

 

Soon after, there was a flash of blue light and a deafening  _ crash.  _ Klaus rushed back to the kitchen only to see Five in the exact same position but now sitting at the other end of the counter, the classics piled messily at the base of the counter. 

 

He considers asking if Five really just… pushed the books off the counter… but after considering the alternative (Five going at his punching bag until his hands are blood and bone and strips of flesh) he decides this is probably a relatively healthy way to deal with frustration. About ten minutes later Five comes slinking out of the kitchen holding Alvin the tarragon. He side-eyes Klaus the same way he’d done before, when they were still building up to the last act of the apocalypse story they found out only too late was a tragedy, but with so much less hostility Klaus almost trips as he crosses the living room. Five slinks up the stairs and closes his door with just enough force to not be a slam and to yet still not  _ not _ be a slam. 

 

The point is, Five is reading classics. And it’s taking up a lot of his time, especially since he isn’t just reading; he’s annotating, taking notes, dissecting. And that extra time has given Klaus time to be able to think over the future of their children. 

 

Klaus will grant, though, that it’s getting a bit weird to refer to the herbs as his children when he and Five regularly snip off clippings to eat. Plants, he is starting to realize, walk that precarious line between being human enough to talk to and being inhuman enough to sell without implications of slavery. The contradiction caused by their lack of consciousness and sensitivity to their surroundings has created for Klaus an inescapable paradox he has exactly as long as it takes Five to read six more classic novels to puzzle out. 

 

Klaus sits in the display area behind the big front window, using it as a sort of bay window while he drinks his coffee and puzzles out the conundrum he’s faced with. To sell or not to sell? And if not, where to keep the plants? How to convince Five? And then what? If they’re not running a nursery, what are they doing?

 

A strain of violin music floats from the kitchen, and Klaus rolls his eyes. One of Five’s playlists, probably. Although when questioned Five fervently denied to Klaus the existence of any Five-born violin playlists, Klaus knows better. It certainly isn’t him playing Vivaldi’s winter and other, more electrifying pieces in the store. He figures it’s a response to Vanya’s passing; some sort of attempt by Five to connect with his sister after her death, and wonders dimly about the possibility of trying to summon Vanya. He’s been sober for, what- weeks? Months? Their little sanctuary has a way of making time seem meaningless- or at least unimportant, trivial compared to the little things that happen in their little home. 

 

Klaus sighs, shivers against the slight chill that creeps into the air invariably preceding winter; he glances at the other end of the ‘bay window,’ where Belle and Mike, two of the basil plants, sit contently. Belle is a little taller than Mike, he notes, and makes a mental note to snip from Belle instead of Mike next time he goes for a snippet of the herb. 

 

The violin music builds to a crescendo and then descends in a series of plucked notes Klaus vaguely recognizes as  _ pizzicato.  _ He isn’t sure where the term comes from; there’s just an instant of understanding and then the word  _ pizzicato _ in his mind, the way Ben sometimes pops words into his head when he gets annoyed.

 

The thought of Ben reminds him that he hasn’t seen or heard of him in a few days, since his outburst of anger at Klaus over- what? Klaus isn’t completely sure.  _ You’re less important in this equation than you think you are, Klaus, _ Ben had snapped, and Klaus had recoiled, because Ben never  _ snapped. _ That was had always caused such a contradiction, such a disconnect, between the monsters that Ben could unleash and the type of person he was, because looking at the real Ben you’d barely think him able to kill a fly. 

 

But the truth was that when Ben transformed, he knew exactly what he was doing. 

 

At one time, perhaps, Klaus had thought that Ben didn’t know. That he couldn’t control himself. “But I can,” Ben had sobbed to him one night when they were kids, while they huddled together in bed, Ben’s face pressed into the mattress to stifle the sobs, his body shaking violently with the effort of keeping quiet. Both of them desperate to reach out and hold the other, to make their brother feel better, but at the same time scared that if they showed cracks of weakness Reginald would grab and poke and prod and tease and leave sore, open wounds once he had inspected every corner. 

 

“I know what I’m doing, Klaus. And I just  _ don’t care. _ ” Ben’s sobs had hiccupped to a stop with gradually decreasing intensity and they had just lain there, both exhausted. Klaus reached out and brushed a smudge of blood still caught behind Ben’s ear and they had stared at each other, both unable to understand the concept of not caring, both caring so much for everything, and yet Ben  _ didn’t care. What’s it like not to care? _ Klaus thought. ( _ I wish I didn’t know _ , Ben had thought, but Klaus didn’t know that. Ben didn’t know what Klaus had thought, either.) Neither of them was telepathic. They just thought the same.

 

Klaus shakes his head to clear his thoughts and refocuses on the moment, starting with cup in his hands. The mug is still warm, but the coffee is cold. He curls himself up higher and watches people’s legs as they pass by, that being the only part of them on eye level with him. Belle and Mike watch him dolefully, and the marigolds- Marigold and Hannah- sit contently on an end table nearby. 

 

Klaus slides his fingers along the edge of his mug. Strains of violin float away into the air as the music drifts, rather than builds, to a close.    
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so  
> here's what's happening  
> This fic has 1 (or possibly 2) more chapters to go  
> That chapter will be up within the week (I hope)  
> Then I'm going to be disappearing for a nice long while to a) outline the next fic in this series b) write some WTNV fanfics  
> until then, beautiful dreamers *salutes*


	12. The Stella Plant Emporium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is le finale

CHAPTER 12

 

*le epic finale*

 

So they open up the nursery. 

 

There’s quite a lot of tedious paperwork involved that Klaus mostly lets Five handle. There’s also some carpentry involved and some decoration; Klaus tries his hand at the former and realizes almost immediately that he has made an irreversibly bad decision, so Five takes over and Klaus attacks the decoration project. 1615 doesn’t actually need too much work; him and Five have done so much already that all that’s really left to do is customize the space for selling plants. 

 

Klaus wonders vaguely if Dharun would like what they’re doing with the place. Somehow, he thinks so. 

 

Their little store is cheery, (“Not too cheery,” Five scowls at Klaus, pretending to be angry about something. Klaus doesn’t mind. Maybe at some point he might’ve. Not anymore). They banter a bit over what to name it. Five wants to name it “Plants For Sale” (“Simple, to the point. What’s not to like? It gets the job done.”) but gives in to Klaus when he suggests The Stella Plant Emporium. 

 

They get a sign painted. Gold lettering on black. Serif font, all caps. 

 

Klaus gets a fancy side table from a thrift store and puts Stella on it. He puts it behind the counter and paints a little sign to read  _ Stella Serja.  _ He props it up against Stella’s pot, and Klaus could swear she stands up a little straighter. 

 

The first plant they sell is Kara the alysseum. 

 

The person who buys her is quite a character. His name is Tristan. He’s young, a little bit younger than Klaus and far, far younger than Five. He’s white and a doctor. He’s buying the alysseum for his girlfriend, Quinn. Tristan smiles a lot. He has dimples in both cheeks. 

 

It’s easier than Klaus thought to let Kara go. Five glares at Tristan suspiciously the whole while he handles the money for the transaction, but he gets away with it because he looks like a kid. Now that Klaus thinks about it, looking like a kid probably gives Five an excuse for a whole lot of weird behaviour. If  _ he _ went around telling people he was a time traveler, he’d probably be locked up. 

 

Klaus asks Tristan about his interests while he looks for a plant suited to the conditions Tristan describes (“Her house gets plenty of sun, and she likes small flowers that grow in large quantities.) Tristan seems stable, if a bit boring. He plays badminton and participates in recreational duck herding, apparently. (“It’s a team-building thing. Great for getting to know people.”) 

 

He takes Kara with him and compliments the store, which softens Five up a little bit. But Kara’s departure wakes Klaus up to a startling truth; they need to plant more plants. Counting Kara, they had 20; there’s 19 left, and it’s not like plants grow overnight. 

 

Five goes for a supply run while Klaus holds down the fort and that very night, they start propagating and replanting. 

 

It takes two weeks for all their initial crop of plants to be adopted. 

 

Belle the basil goes to a tall, freckled East Asian teenager named Gemma. She wants the plant for her house’s kitchen. (“I’m thinking of building a herb frame,” she tells Klaus, and Klaus has to ask what she means.) 

 

Chris and Jamie, fellow basils, go to a health centre receptionist named Chad. He assures them that he has a warm spot for them. 

 

That leaves 16 plants, plus the new ones. But it’s the first 16 that Klaus is really attached to, and it’s for them that he vets and questions every customer. 

 

They sell the other alysseum, Bart, to a nice Brazilian lady named Felicity in a beautiful vintage dress Klaus exclaims over. Felicity offers to take Klaus shopping for one at a store she knows. Klaus lets her know he’s not interested in dating her, just to avoid confusion, and it turns out she’s gay, so it’s not a problem. They swap numbers. 

 

Five plays violin music. The customers comment on it, and Klaus glances meaningfully at Five, who just acts confused. 

 

An old man named Luke with neon-blue hair and three nose rings buys them out of lavender, taking Ellie, Emily, Jessica and Jaime-Anne off with him. 

 

Ten to go. 

 

The coleus both go to a man in a wheelchair named Cuauhtehmoc. Eight.

 

A tarragon plant and a marigold (Hannah and Annadonna)  for a paramedic. 

 

A marigold (Marigold)  for a journalist. 

 

A zinnia (Elsa) bought by twins for their mom’s hospital room. 

  
  


A schoolteacher buys all their tarragon, (Sharaf, Milada, Alvin) including the new ones they’ve planted, for her gardening club. 

 

Only Liana the zinnia left, Klaus thinks, feeling the bittersweetness of the moment, and then a short, squat little woman comes in and asks about the beautiful zinnia in the window. 

 

So they sell all their plants. They get quite a few offers for Abbie, Lucy and Tom; Stella has the most suitors, with quite a few people taking pictures. (“It’s stupid,” Five says to Klaus one day, gazing at Stella as Klaus sweeps the floor of dirt, “But I could swear she was posing for those pictures.”)

 

More violin music. Requests for their playlist. Klaus side-eyes Five again, but he’s still pretending he doesn’t know where the music is coming from, so Klaus gives some vague thanks by way of answer and changes the subject. 

 

Ben appears again at some point, and Klaus drops Lucy and Tom’s bowl. In a literal flash, Five is there and catches it. He gives Klaus a dirty look, but Klaus is too busy staring at the figure perched on the counter. 

 

“ _ Honestly, _ ” Klaus complains. “Do  _ any _ of my brothers know what chairs are?”

 

Ben  _ almost  _ laughs at that, and Klaus takes the opportunity to pounce on him with questions. Where the hell has he been? (Sulking, basically.) What the hell is “You’re not as important as you think you are” supposed to me? (The answer to that is a bit more complicated.)

 

“This is how we differ, Klaus,” Ben explains. “You have no control. I do.”

 

Klaus frowns. “So you’ve been  _ controlling  _ me?”

 

“No, of course not. But you’re not a necromancer, Klaus-,” Klaus opens his mouth, but Ben plows ahead- “you’re a portal. A door. And sometimes people decide to open the door and walk through.”

 

“Except when I’m high, apparently.”

 

“When you’re high it’s kind of like the door turns into a window. We can peek through a little bit, but the door bounces back in our face every time.”

 

Huh, Klaus says, and asks about Dave. 

 

Dave’s fine, Ben says, and Klaus’s heart stops. 

 

“You’ve  _ met _ him?”

 

“A couple times. I… see the appeal.” 

 

Klaus goes to shove Ben on the shoulder and instead almost goes sprawling over the counter. “Don’t come after my man, dude!”

 

“Gross,” Ben shudders. “Even if I was the kind of person to fall in love, trust me, he wouldn’t be my type.”

 

Klaus debates whether or not he needs to defend Dave’s honour against this statement, because he’s pretty sure Dave had been at least half the army’s sexual awakening by the time he got there, but decides there are more important questions to settle. Like, can he see Dave? Where is he? 

 

The gist of it is that given that Dave has been dead for like, 70 years, he’s strayed pretty far from Klaus’s living-dead border door in that time. It’s better news than Klaus was hoping for, and he guesses it’s better than what he had been imagining (Dave lost in some kind of spatial void, falling forever. A tad dramatic? Perhaps. But that’s practically Klaus’s watermark.)

 

Then another thought occurs to Klaus that makes something inside him freeze and drop into his lower stomach. “What about Vanya?”

 

Ben stares at him for a second. “I was wondering when you’d ask. Took you long enough.”

 

Klaus wants to ask  _ what the hell is that supposed to mean? _ but his stomach is all knotted up and he’s starting to feel like he might throw up. Has Vanya just been. There all this time? And why hasn’t she stepped through? Does she remember being- dying? Does she blame All- Any of them?

 

Did she walk away to whatever’s beyond Klaus’s door-portal thing when she died? Did she ever look back? Or did she leave everything behind and do it gladly?

 

Does she hate them?

 

Does she hate  _ him _ ?

 

Five’s violin playlist is building to a crescendo and combined with all this new information, it’s making Klaus dizzy. “Shut the music off,” he mumbles, pressing a fist to his eyes, and somehow Five hears him from the other room and does. 

 

“You don’t like it?” asks a soft, wry voice, and Klaus freezes, literally this time. 

When he finally builds up the courage to pull his hand away from his eyes and look for the source of the sound, he feels like he’s going to faint. 

 

Curled up in the ‘bay-window,’ ghostly violin still tucked under her translucent chin, is Vanya Hargreeves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that concludes Klaus Hargreeves's Guide To Raising Houseplants!
> 
> the next fic in this series will be called.... drumroll.... The Phantom In The Nursery! It'll be about Vanya.
> 
> see you whenever, beautiful dreamers!


	13. A Retraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oops

Turns out I misread my outline. 

 

The next fic in the series will actually be focussed on Vanya, and it's called  _The Phantom Of The Nursery._


End file.
